Whoa, wait. Didn’t we do something about Tribes already? Well… yeah. I’m not normally one to go back and revisit something, either, but I’m willing to say that this patch changed enough for me to go back and take another look at it. So, I’ll be comparing what’s new and changed to the complaints from the first article on the game we hosted. So, if you haven’t checked that out, just give it a quick skim before reading on.

As you may know, this patch completely changed the progression in Tribes. No longer do we have twelve classes with many of them being similar in the “Let’s take Soldier and give him a Thumper” sort of way. We’re now down to nine classes, each with customizable and upgradable loadouts. Also, new players start off with three classes: Pathfinder, Soldier, and Juggernaut. I had assumed they’d do something like this, if only to make sure you weren’t stuck with just Soldier for your first fifty or so games that it took to grind out enough tokens for a new class.

Speaking of which, the token and XP system has been completely revamped in an absolutely wonderful way. Tokens just flat-out don’t exist anymore. Everything is bought with XP, which either seems to be more easily obtained or they’ve normalized and reduced the cost of classes. Also, the perk trees are gone! Instead, you get to upgrade what you want, when you want. Again, this seems infinitely easier to do since the new patch. Nothing (outside of perks and new weapons) cost an arm and a leg anymore, and it’s just wonderful.

All in all, it seems like the complaints of a lot of people were addressed. It’s no longer a chore to grind for a new class and the lowered amount of classes means that everything feels unique instead of a ‘Soldier with Thumper’ sort of way. So, yeah. Keep up the good work, Hi-Rez, because I haven’t had this much fun with an FPS in a long time. And to you fine folks, thanks for the support and have a good’un.